Media Release

25/07/2002

Monty Python Bureaucracy Closes Railway Station

General Motors station will close on July 29th, thanks to the action of a bureaucracy that can only be described as 'Pythonesque', according to the PTUA. General Motors station was opened in the 1960's to serve the new GMH plant in Dandenong. It was equipped with two platforms and a footbridge leading to a gate into the GMH plant.

Fast forward to 2002. Passengers using the station have dwindled to a handful. Only eight trains (four each way) stop at the station daily, stops that were catered for GMH shifts that no longer exist. The GMH plant has shrunk, but new industries have sprung up all around the area. However, there is no access to any of these businesses from the station. In fact, there is no access to the GMH plant either, as the footbridge now leads to the middle of a fenced off paddock. The passengers have to jump off the platform and run over the tracks to get to work. In any sane world there would be gates built to take people into the GMH plant and into the surrounding business estate. Not in Melbourne though.

Instead:

M>Train (The private operator) asks for permission to close the station, because patronage is low.

The Director of Public Transport "consults" on the change (the consultation consists of a letter to the advisory Committee curtly informing them that the station will close because patronage is low and there is no proper pedestrian access).

The PTUA argues that the station should be improved so that people can actually use it - starting with providing some pedestrian access. We are rebuffed, with the Department and the Minister's office saying patronage is too low (because there is no pedestrian access) to justify providing basic pedestrian access!

M>Train says that "after" the station has been closed, it will look at plans to improve the station.